From the DPVA:
RICHMOND — Ed Gillespie simply cannot be bothered to adhere to the facts. Today, on The John Fredericks Show, he continued to state that he had an “anti-mandate approach” to healthcare reform, despite the fact that he was promoting the policy. Both independent fact checkers and conservative analysts have debunked Gillespie's attempts to rewrite history. In his book, Ed Gillespie wrote, “A more rational approach is to ensure that every emancipated adult capable of providing for his or her health care do so. One way to accomplish this is to use the tax code to gain compliance.”
While we read that as promoting an individual mandate approach to reforming health care, you don't need to take our word for it. In the Politifact VA fact check, health policy experts said this was “absolutely” an individual mandate and his suggestion amounted to “the functional equivalent of an individual mandate.”
“Having spent years working as a million–dollar Washington lobbyist, Ed Gillespie has grown accustomed to ignoring the facts he doesn't like,” said DPVA spokesperson Ashley Bauman. “However, his opposition to a key part of the Affordable Care Act is a new level of hypocrisy in Virginia politics. While it may be difficult for him to swallow, he should be honest with voters and tell the truth about his previous promotion of the individual mandate.”
